i can be weird and melancholic one day and rolling on the floor laughing the next. no, i'm not bipolar ^_^, but i sometimes i get into these weird mood swings. writing keeps me sane, as much as my family & friends. although life can be tough, i love it. :) every day is a learning experience.

It’s that time of the year again when horror movies are shown on tv, there are Halloween specials and the retelling of ghost stories abound.

For as long as I can remember I have loved watching horror films and listening & telling ghost stories. Pretty ironic, specially because I am one of the worlds biggest cowards.

I don’t know if it’s because I have an active imagination or because I sometimes sense other worldly things. My aunt used to tell me I may have inherited my maternal grandmother’s third eye, but mine is only partially open. Let’s keep it that way. :)

When I was in grade school, I used to stay at my grandparents’ house after school. Then after work mom & dad would fetch us and we’d go home together. St. Scho was near lola’s house and I liked staying there playing with my cousins after doing my homework (yep, mabait ako, homework first before playing, magagalit kasi si lola. haha!)

Lola would cook merienda and we’d ask her about the things that she saw when she stayed in the province and when Manila was not as populated as it is right now. I don’t recall her telling the stories, she’d just smile and continue cooking but my cousin Ate Weng & I would bug our auntie Dely and she’d be the one to tell us the stories of lola’s scary encounters with white & black dwarves, a headless horseman, a hairy hand grabbing her ankles and ghosts. We also heard testimonies like this from lola’s sister and our other relatives.

I don’t know if those beings are real or not, but we thought, if it weren’t true then why were there many stories of lola’s encounters? She didn’t want to talk about it, but our older relatives used to tell us all about it.

I’ve always been sensitive. Sometimes out of nowhere, I just get chills up my spine & I’d get goosebumps. Or I’d see something in my peripheral vision, but when I look there’s nothing there. Though I’d feel like someone’s watching me. Or I get these uneasy feelings about certain places without knowing why. But afterwards I’d learn that something bad happened there.

The first “encounter” I can remember was when I was 4 years old. I remember that clearly because it was 10 days before my 5th birthday. We used to live in Manila and I woke up in the middle of the night. Mom woke up to see me waving at the door and she asked who I was waving at. I told her my dad’s sister. who lived in Baguio was at the bedroom door waving & smiling at me. I asked mom, “Mommy bakit maliwanag si Tita M?” Mom woke up Dad and they asked me to point where she was, I pointed to the door but she was gone. They didn’t tell me that my tita had passed away that night. I don’t know if we were close or not, but I remember that we just visited her in Baguio a few weeks before that night.

There are other instances I’d rather not remember. Tatakutin ko na naman ang sarili ko. Hehe. Suffice to say that I don’t see “them”, I just feel them. Sometimes it’s just the chills up my spine. Or I’d feel like my head was expanding. Not a good feeling at all.

These instances are not often though, Thank God.

Can you blame me if I sometimes sleep with the lights on & I keep all my bedroom windows and drapes shut at night?